Mayor Wants Audit After 90% Of Financial Oversight Board’s Records Found To Be Missing Or Destroyed

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto wants an audit of the city's financial oversight board after an investigation by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review found that 90 percent of the board's records were misplaced or destroyed.

Credit Keith Srakocic / AP Images

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is calling for an audit of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, which oversees the city’s finances, after an investigation by The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review found that nearly all of the authority’s records have been destroyed.

The newspaper reports that more than 90 percent of the ICA’s spending records were misplaced or destroyed. Peduto called the revelation “very troubling,” and said he wants to know why the ICA can’t find its own budget documents.

“When oversight has no oversight, and has been granted no oversight by government, then there’s a very serious problem,” Peduto said on Monday.

The ICA is a financial oversight group formed by state legislators in 2004 to bring order and guidance to Pittsburgh lawmakers dealing with the city's extreme financial distress. At the time, hundreds of city employees had been laid-off, some services were unreliable and the city’s credit rating had been downgraded.

The lack of financial documents, combined with allegations that the oversight board handed out no-bid contracts, prompted Peduto on Monday to call on the new ICA board chair to conduct an audit.

The city is also suing the ICA to release $20 million dollars in gambling tax revenue that Peduto said is being withheld illegally.

“When you have one group that has been holding on to $20 million of taxpayers’ money, handing out contracts without giving any bids, then saying, ‘We don’t know where we spent the money’ – that should raise a lot of red flags,” Peduto said.

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The financial oversight authority created by the state legislature now has a full five-member board. For several months, the board was down to two members.

The city is currently suing the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority for withholding gambling tax revenue when, the city said, the board had open seats and no legal right to withhold the money. For months, the board was down to two members until Gov. Tom Wolf, Sen. Jay Costa and Rep. Frank Dermody appointed members in the last month.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto requested the audit in August, asserting the ICA has illegally withheld $12.8 million in state gambling funds the city earns by hosting Rivers Casino. The ICA was established in 2004 to help Pittsburgh avoid bankruptcy. It controls millions the state gives Pittsburgh every year and can disapprove city budgets.